The present invention relates to Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). More specifically, the present invention relates to online activities related to billing.
In recent years, Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) has become widely acceptable among Internet users. EBPP enables a user to view bills and also pay them over the Internet. The bills can be viewed on the web site of a biller, or the biller may send them to the user via electronic mail or regular mail. The user can make payments either directly on the biller's web site, or indirectly via an intermediate financial institution.
The method of making payments directly on the biller's web site is commonly known as the ‘biller direct method’. In this method, a user is required to register on the web site provided by the biller for the purpose of viewing and paying bills. A registered user is required to provide authentication information to the biller's web site in order to view personal bills. The web site can also accept payments against these bills—payments can be made by providing information pertaining to the user's credit card and bank account, and other information relating to the mode of payment. Biller direct web sites have grown over the last two to three years. According to some estimates, more than 4000 biller direct web sites are in operation today in the US alone. However, a very small proportion of these billers' customers make payments through their web sites. Further, it is very difficult to acquire online customers and retain them as regular users.
The other method of making payments is an indirect one, via an intermediate financial institution. This method is a ‘consolidated method’ for EBPP. In this method, an intermediate entity, usually a financial institution or a portal, creates a site where the user can make payments to one or more billers or personal payees. The user is required to provide authentication information only once to the intermediate entity. For most bills, the user has to know the total amount due before using consolidator web sites to make payments. On the other hand, biller direct web sites have this information readily available for the user. Payments made to billers through consolidator web sites typically need to be processed by a third party, which means a delay of two to five days before these payments are processed. On the other hand, payments made through biller direct web sites can usually be processed or at least acknowledged on the same day. Finally, payments made on consolidator web sites are usually limited to the financial institution's checking account, whereas biller direct web sites offer multiple payment method choices, such as checking the account of any financial institution or credit/debit card.
Another method for enabling EBPP has emerged recently. According to this method, bill presentment is enabled by a system that periodically authenticates itself on the biller's web site. The authentication information is provided by the user to the system. The system ‘scrapes’ the information relating to the user's bill from the biller's web site. This information is presented to the user in a standardized template. The system allows the user to pay the scraped bill by automatically authenticating the user on the biller's web site. Following this, the user can make payments directly on the biller's web site. However, this method has several operational problems relating to the maintenance of the capability of ‘scraping’ bill information and extending this capability to additional biller web sites. There may also be errors made in interpreting the consumer's bill information.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and a system for providing the user with the advantages of the biller direct method combined with the consolidated method. In addition, there is also a requirement for a method and system that presents bill information without errors.